Page 95 of The Grump I Got Stuck With

“You don’t have to pretend with me.”

“I’m not pretending. She belongs there,” I said, unprepared for how much those words hurt to say. “With Kenna.”

“I suppose when you eventually come home…” Emily began. “Well, we could always go to the shelter to find you a different four-legged companion.”

“Right,” I said, but it wouldn’t be Princess. Tossing the pillow aside and rolling over to pick up my phone, I tried to sound positive. “I’ve done right by her, finding her a kid that adores her.” At least one of us got our happy ending. I swiped at a tear that slipped from the corner of my eye. “Okay,” I said, clearing my throat. “Back to business.”

“Yes,” Emily said, giving me a supportive cheer. “What are we working with?”

I opened the Voyages app. It had been a couple months since I’d been on it. “I’m thinking maybe I should make my way to Aberdeen like I originally planned. Start there.”

I could hear Emily typing. “Hmm…It’s apparently the gateway to Scotland’s castle country. I know you’ve just been living in a castle, but⁠—”

“I’ve read that too,” I said, cutting her off. “Apparently, Dunnotrar Castle is close by, and the ruins are amazing.”

“Exactly,” Emily said. “You need more old ruins in your life and less fancy coffee machines. Cool, ancient things to ground you and make you think about the world. I think that was probably your birth mom’s vibe, don’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely. I…wait, what the heck?” I murmured, scrolling through the app.

“What is it?” Emily asked.

“I think…” I sat up on the bed, crossing my legs and hunching over my phone. I opened my account profile. “It looks like my account has been upgraded.”

“To what?”

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure. “I didn’t think the premium package even offered this many perks. Holy shit! I have behind-the-scenes offers and exclusive access passes to all major attractions across the country.” My jaw dropped. “It includes resort stays.”

“Ooh, cool! You think it’s some sort of weird glitch?”

“A friggin’ expensive glitch.” I flipped back to the home screen and tried to plug Aberdeen into the location destination section. The loading screen appeared, that compass spinning in front of me, but instead of mapping my route, it simply said error. “Weird. It won’t let me set a route.”

“Maybe the whole app is glitching,” Emily suggested.

“Can you try plugging in Braeburn to Aberdeen on your phone?”

“Yeah, one sec.” Emily went quiet for a beat. “Works for me. Says it’s less than two hours away from Braeburn.”

I grumbled. “Maybe I need to reboot my phone. It won’t let me enter any destination. It already has one pre-selected for me that says HOME.”

“What happens when you click on it?”

I did, letting the route default to taking me wherever HOME was. I followed the map, frowning. “It’s taking me back to Alistair’s address. I never set that as my home destination.” I tried to edit it, but the app wouldn’t let me do that, either.

“Try putting in a different starting point,” Emily said.

I did, switching it up. Edinburgh. Glasgow. Hell, I’d go back to London if it would let me. But no dice. Whatever starting point I chose, the destination always defaulted to Dunhope Castle.

“Ughhhh,” I grumbled. “This is so annoying.” I didn’t want to have to start over with some other travel app. This one already had all my information, all my travel data, all my saved locations, and the places of interest I wanted to explore. And, damn it all, I liked Voyages. I liked the way it worked, the way it approached the travel from Point A to Point B not as some chore to get through but as an adventure with endless charming surprises to discover along the way. For all his faults, Alistair had designed a really excellent app.

“Hey, Mads,” Emily said tentatively, “what if this isn’t a glitch?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if there’s a reason the app wants you to go home to Dunhope?”

Her words short-circuited something in my brain. “Alistair did this,” I said, realizing at once that I was right. Of course he did.

“I mean, he still knows the tech guys at Voyages, right? I’m sure one of them would probably have been willing to do him a favor and make some tweaks to your account.”